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Justin Kollinger '109.24 PM - Committee sessions ended today. After the conclusion of debate, we voted on the resolution that we had worked extensively on first, and it passed with 81 countries in favor, 71 against, and 4 abstensions. Patrick and I felt as if we played a large role in the result; before yesterday the committee was evenly split. We convinced the USA, Cyprus, Tanzania, and Australia to switch to our resolution, so we made a significant contribution. The resolution and pictures taken from the last day will be found on worldmun.org once they are posted.

Award winners were announced at closing ceremonies. A university in Lahore, Pakistan won best small delegation and MUN Society Belgium won best large delegation. Individual honors from our committee went to India, Serbia, Ethopia, South Africa, and Marshall Islands. Tonight is the final social event, the farewell dance party at a beach club. It won't be as glamorous as it sounds - it is currently 41 degrees outside. However, it is my last chance to say goodbye to great friends who I will hopefully see again.

Katie McDaniel '09We killed Mao today. Well, actually, first I was purged for having an affair (not fair considering what Mao put me through, but I think I can get over that), then I lived out my days on a tea plantation. However, I was miraculously brought back as Hua Guofeng, one of Zhou Enlai (think a little bit Deng Xiaoping, a lot Mao suck-up) enemies. The chair gave us all a ten minute break, during which myself and a few other delegates jokingly said we should purge Mao. Little did we know that our joke would become a reality. So, Mao died. We made Wang Li, former propaganda minister, the new chairman...and Zhou tried to stop us. By then, we'd given into the mob mentality though.

So, MUN can be a lot of fun! You can "purge"!! Who wouldn't want to do that?!

After this stimulating final session, I headed into town with Catherine for some final souvenir shopping before heading to closing ceremonies. We both realized how much we just wanted to shop for anything and everything that the Netherlands had to offer. However, it was a sad reality that there was not much time left for us. We tried to offset it with a fairly successful dinner at a cafe down the road from our hotel. I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that all of us spent most of the day ignoring the end. We pretended that we still had plenty of time. Perhaps WorldMUN was just a competitive and interactive kind of study abroad. Maybe, if we believed this, it would just keep living on and on.

Of course, this is the truth...to a degree. The friendships and the memories we made here won't be disappearing anytime soon.

Sneha Shrestha '10So the trip is coming to an end. We are planning to get out of the hotel at 4:30 in the morning, so we can take the train to Amsterdam at 5:23 and make it to the airport by 6 for our 8 o'clock flight to JFK airport. Phew! I certainly hope we wake up! I know I'm going to be grumpy and sad about leaving. I'm glad these blog posts aren't video posts.